Shards of Glass
by somethingsdont
Summary: EC. Fragments of a roller coaster relationship. A collection of 100 word drabbles based on prompts.
1. 001 to 005

**Title**: Shards of Glass  
**Author**: Lucy (somethingsdont)  
**Pairing**: Eric/Calleigh  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Timeline**: Anywhere fitting; primarily season 4  
**Summary**: Fragments of a roller coaster relationship. A collection of 100-word drabbles based on prompts.  
**Notes**: Initially meant to write a bunch of angsty UST-filled drabble, but have now decided that anything goes. Drabbles are unrelated and don't resolve a damn thing. :)

* * *

001. **Crash**

She storms into the break room, chest heaving.

He follows, jaw clenched (tongue held), fist formed (for the wall, not her cheek), anger trickled across his facial features like spilt paint.

Neither remembers the catalyst; both challenge the other to apologize first. But pride hits her, and denial of fault runs through his veins. Gazes set to laser through skin and flesh, split bone, puncture holes into already-bleeding hearts.

She crashes into him, attempts intimidation despite physical disadvantages. Her hand stops mid-slap. Through silk and cotton, there is friction and arousal.

There are bitter remnants of a line long-ago crossed.

* * *

002. **Dim**

The crime light works best under dim lighting. Better contrast.

Darkness draws silence; silence draws thought. And _that_, that draws furtive glances across the room at the other working form. As she reaches down in search of a stray piece of glass, he swallows an especially inappropriate deliberation.

Suddenly, her breath is hot against his neck. She's talking about something, but fuck, he can't recall what. The more she talks, the less he remembers what the hell they're supposed to be doing.

When the light returns, she hasn't moved an inch, hasn't spoken a syllable.

It had felt too real.

* * *

003. **Futile**

She imagines tracing her fingertips across his bare chest, imagines replacing them with her lips, then her tongue.

Ladies don't have unhealthy thoughts, she reminds herself.

But every image is stronger than the last. More urgent, frantic, hips rolling. The idea of exploring his unchartered skin thrills her more than guns ever did.

She tries not to look (futile), and he tries to hide (futile), but she sees everything in her imagination anyway. Sees him exposed; fights the desire. Lives in a world where meticulousness trumps yearning.

The only thing that escapes futility is the consistency of an irregular heartbeat.

* * *

004. **Erratic**

Her breathing is erratic in the throes of passion.

When he opens his eyes, he looks surprised to see the woman under him. She has brown eyes, or blue, or hazel, amber, gray.

Never green.

The disappointment hits him hard every time, as he pushes away and dresses in haste. Sexually satiated but emotionally hollow, he leaves.

Doesn't give a damn about her name, either, because he knows that it's the wrong one.

He wonders what she'd say if he told her that she's the one he thinks about throughout nocturnal intimacy.

He wonders if she's an erratic breather, too.

* * *

005. **Loved**

She loves firearms. Guns never lie, never cheat, never betray. Striations are precise and loyal.

Unlike people.

For people, the verb 'love' can only be spoken of in the past tense. She _loved_ a person, before each and every one of them dealt her a crushing blow to the sternum, knocking the wind out of her lungs.

Trust fades.

She loved him once, she supposes, but not anymore. Now, she only fantasizes about having her way with him, rough and vulgar.

But somewhere, she still wants him to show her that it's possible to change loved to the present tense.


	2. 006 to 010

006. **Soft**

Every day, she looks him in the eye and misleads him, pretends his hand brushing against hers doesn't send sparks up her arm and down her spine.

Straight to her core.

He likes this, likes her lack of response, because he can continue playing his game. He wants to see how far he can push her before she lashes back. He wants to see her angry, irritated, uncharacteristically flustered.

He likes knowing that only he can do this to her.

What he doesn't know is this: The gentlest touches make the deepest imprints.

Soft fingers caress her in her dreams.

* * *

007. **Hold**

Her grip is firm.

He can't remember the last time she touched him (he thinks eight—no, ten days), and he feels pathetic for welcoming her skin like a tweaker in dire need of a hit.

Contact as potent as crystal meth.

Even as she draws him away from a piece of evidence (fucking work) and releases his arm, she's imprinted him, and the double shift he'd been assigned suddenly feels like a ten-year sentence.

But he'd made the proper accommodations, steeled himself for the possibility, been more than prepared for this development.

He'd known it'd be no holds barred.

* * *

008. **Shackles**

He's restrained. She binds his mind like a pair of fresh handcuffs around unwilling wrists. Stainless steel encircles criminal flesh.

He struggles, but the chains only tighten, choking out bruise after bruise. A permanent indentation carved into olive skin.

He's marked.

He wants to ask her to rub his booboos, but even in his head, it sounds hysterical. He wishes for inebriation, alcohol-induced stupors, so that he could speak regretful words and commit sinful acts without the suffocating guilt.

He admires her nonchalance, knows he can't hide his lust as well.

The truth is, though concealed, she wears shackles, too.

* * *

009. **Broken**

She walks into (_his embrace and she's pulling_) the lab, takes a seat (_on his lap and he's lifting_) in audio-visual, pretends to be buried in (_his neck and she's biting_) surveillance tapes of the robbery.

He enters (_her and she's moaning_) behind her, leans against (_the backboard and he's thrusting_) the table, watches (_her face and she's panting_) a nameless stranger whip out a pistol and pull the trigger.

Over and over again (_until ohGod!_).

When she tires, she'll leave, but not before she's broken (_down in his arms but none of this is real_) his heart in two.

* * *

010. **Precious**

He has never seen her cry.

She casts a thick metallic box around her heart, superglues her tear ducts shut. Crying is for pansies, for imperfect people who allow anxiety to suffocate them. She's not weak, has control.

Refusal and denial make her tears rare, and scarcity precedes preciousness; isn't that what supply and demand are all about? He's never liked economics.

Chemistry, however, he understands. He wants to make her cry just to study her teardrops. He muses about its density, viscosity, boiling point.

He wonders what it would be like to taste tears kissed off her heated cheeks.


	3. 011 to 015

011. **Odds and Ends**

He has a collection of her memories stored haphazardly in his life, snapshots of uninhibited laughter, genuine smiles, flirty words. But it's been too long; they're blurry around the edges, unfocused in the background, lopped off where it counts.

The only descript item that remains is a remembrance of trust, of unspoken love.

He'll never have anything else for his compilation, and that hurts, more than he'll admit. If she knows, she's acting like it doesn't faze her.

That's okay, though.

Miscellany is his forte; he amasses fragments of their past in odd places as a means to an end.

* * *

012. **Tea**

There are four major types of tea: white (her pale skin brushes against his), green (her piercing eyes are wide, pupils dilated), oolong (she makes a throaty 'ooo' sound, drags it out long), black (she's approaching the edge, and at the end of the tunnel, there's darkness).

But nothing is ever that simple, and when he delves into a flowchart of teas, he realizes that there are a billion and one infusions possible, and he wonders where chamomile, Earl Grey, Orange pekoe fit into this equation. 

Besides, when he stands too close, he gets a nice gulp of iced tea.

* * *

013. **Twisted**

Each time he says something wildly inappropriate, does something to further damage their precariously life-supported relationship, she feels a knife twisting deeper into her gut.

But she's too proud to beg him to stop, too jaded to believe he'll listen, too bitter to prevent herself from twisting a few strands of blond hair through her fingers when he's taking a peek.

He mutters a quick curse under his breath, looks away sharply. He doesn't remember the last time he took so many cold fucking showers in his life.

It's twisted, but it's routine, and isn't predictability what she's always wanted?

* * *

014. **Echo**

Reverberating sound has the peculiar ability to cut off half the phrase, altering the intended meaning:

"_Take_ another look at _your_ crime scene photos; the _clothes_ have fallen _off_ the top shelf." Her tone is disapproving, but he's too busy reeling from her words.

In his head, he pictures giving her a little striptease.

"Do you _do_ that just to piss _me_ off?" She's angry; he thinks it means she'll be rough.

That night, he waits for her to show up in a skimpy little number, but she doesn't.

Wishful thinking and selective hearing have the same effect as echoes.

* * *

015. **Soothe**

They've become sadists, masochists; addicted to inflicting and receiving pain. Anything can set her off, and he's past the point of trying to please her.

But it's in his nature, and he hates feeling guilty (still a little Catholic boy), so sometimes, he'll apologize quietly, pull her into an awkward but soothing half-hug, and she'll sigh, relent, draw a quick shape on his shirt with her fingertip before pulling away.

For the rest of the day, there's no more button-pushing, no snappy retorts, and he thinks he can learn to enjoy the peace.

But tomorrow, she brings the heavy artillery.


	4. 016 to 020

016. **Fight**

Fists balled and bandaged, she raises them in front of her face and concentrates on the heavy, grain-filled punching bag hanging from the ceiling. She grits her teeth and adds a slight bounce to her step. Heart rate quickens, muscles tighten, adrenaline pumping pumpin' pump.

_Fucking fear_, she thinks as she lands a right-handed jab, knuckles crushing against rough leather.

There's pain, but there's release. Punishment, maybe.

She's hurt him, so the next hit is for how unfairly she's treated him. She realizes that one's not enough, so she pummels the bag with a flurry of quick shots.

Technical knockout.

* * *

017. **Naked**

He imagines her hand ghosting over his skin, fingertips trailing warm paths down the valleys of his muscles. Kisses – just a few – and she makes him work for them.

Her naked body graces his dreams, infiltrates his nightmares. It's everything he's never wanted, but he lacks the brakes, can't escape the nine point eight meters per second squared spiral.

Imagination is free, but the residual memories she leaves behind are not. He pays for those every day, breaks more than just the bank.

He finds himself tragically alone every night, wishing she meant more to him than a mere conquest.

* * *

018. **Push**

The rope burns her palms, but her willpower is fireproof. She sees him in the distance; he's reeling her in. There's no turning back; she pushes on.

Braided straw grinds through her fingertips, unforgiving edges slicing scarred skin. She loosens her grip and watches her own blood gradually seep into the rope. She knows this isn't real, but the sudden punch to the gut leaves her breathless, questioning.

She stumbles awake in a pool of sweat that is too reminiscent of blood. She checks her hands.

She learns the hard way that there's no pushing required in tug of war.

* * *

019. **Alive**

Human life cannot be sustained underwater without complicated gizmos and gadgets, yet he's never felt more alive. He dives to forget his father's disappointed eyes, his sister's sickly pale skin, his best friend's coffin disappearing into a six-foot abyss.

Constant reminders of what he's lost rest on dry land, so he remains submerged.

He's running on tanked oxygen and sheer adrenaline, but there's peace. Solitude. He clenches his jaw and reminds himself that he can do this without her. Has to.

He finds life in the silence of the ocean, away from the din of death that envelopes his existence.

* * *

020. **New**

"I miss us," she whispers one day, head hanging as if from marionette strings.

It's taken her everything she's got to admit that, and he's silent for so long that she's prepared a billion ways to write off her words. She's awash with relief when she needs zero.

"I'm sorry," comes his gentle reply.

She's overwhelmed by the emotion his apology has elicited.

"_I miss us_," she chokes out again, louder, tears blurring her vision.

He swallows a sob, warm liberation cascading into his chest. "We'll start anew, Cal," he murmurs, hope overflowing from somewhere he's long ago locked away.


End file.
